Sidney McLaurin

Sidney McLaurin is co-founder and CEO of Fleet Robotics, a Charlestown, Massachusetts company founded in 2022 whose autonomous robots clean and inspect ship hulls during normal operations, so biofouling is treated continuously instead of at the next port visit. In April 2026 Fleet Robotics and the classification society ABS signed a memorandum of understanding on autonomous continuous hull cleaning and inspection, announced at Singapore Maritime Week. The company has raised about $2.9 million from investors including Material Impact, AiiM Partners, Grit Ventures and Elemental Impact, and is a Greentown Labs member. Sidney has been a Partner at Material Impact, the Boston deep-tech venture fund, since 2020. Earlier he was a General Manager at Lime, where he launched its first market and went on to open more than 30 markets worldwide, managed Siemens' industrial PC portfolio in the United States, and held investing roles at Kapor Capital and Qualcomm Ventures. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida and an MBA and a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University. At Founding Blue he spoke on the panel "The Journey from Seed to IPO".